Spoilers: Hounds of Baskerville

Ch 35 in which our hero Sherlock is trying to restart his mind.

A long time ago there was a time when Sherlock would slowly transition between sleep and being awake. Nowadays he would just spring up to consciousness and continue to think where he stopped the night before.

Sometimes his dreams would be useful too in continuing his reasoning revealing something of importance, some new angle.

This morning was nothing like it.

He woke up slowly feeling disoriented. There was no thought to pull upon and his dreams were an incoherent mess of John moving before him constantly out of touch.

'Why would he want to touch John?' Sherlock frowned.

He shook his head and looked around adjusting to his surroundings.

The case was over, that explained the lack of thought to continue. The place was unfamiliar, that explained the change in his sleep pattern. Still, the dreams were strange. As was the feeling in his groin. He felt wasted. He missed his usual vigour, readiness to just jump out of bed and attack the world with all his anger.

Now the anger seemed lost, misplaced. Sherlock was used to the sharpness with which he handled his days.

Sherlock forced himself up. He dressed with care but the usual swift sharpness wasn't there. He was almost mild, he might say content. That wasn't a feeling he was used to.

He was dressed to go, ready to move but still, something was missing. Sherlock looked around the room avoiding to look straight in John's direction. He couldn't find anything he forgot.

Then John murmured and Sherlock looked at him just to find him still sleeping.

He was sleeping on his back frowning in his sleep and Sherlock couldn't but notice the bulge of his erection. Did he sleep the whole night like that? How could he sleep like that and wasn't it exhausting?

The bulge twitched and Sherlock suddenly wondered about its shape and size, just for curiosity sake, nothing more.

John was still sleeping, not near to waking up. There probably won't be an opportunity like this, for gathering data. Sherlock was the one to observe, to understand, nothing more.

He moved in closer to determine the size. He wondered was that the full size or something in between. Without really thinking about it, he reached out and touch it, just to test its firmness.

The erection was firm as expected but unexpected was John's moan. Sherlock looked at him startled fearing that he woke up. John pulled his legs up and turned to the side murmuring.

Sherlock could see that his sleep was much thinner now. He wasn't really ready to be caught like this so he went to the door quietly.

When he was on the corridor, he closed the door slowly to avoid waking him up.

"Running away in the morning, I see," the woman's voice startled him. "Was it really that bad?"

Sherlock turned his head to see Henry's therapist standing there looking at him with mocking.

"It was an eventful evening," he said flatly not ready to engage with her, that case was closed. "He needs to sleep some more."

"So, you're being careful, not running away," she smiled. "I like that better. It's a better story. Too many men just run away at first glance of intimacy."

Usually, Sherlock would comment on her obvious inclination towards liars but now he just wanted to move away from standing before this door. John will wake up any second now.

"Intimacy is scary," he said instead. "It's best to let them run rather than to indulge in pretences and waste your and their time. I think that's kinder."

"I'll keep that in mind," she sighed and moved past him.

Downstairs, Sherlock managed to put a few bites in him but he was unable to restart his thinking process. It was as it was lagging like there was no hurry to start something new. The lack of pressure and rush was annoying.

Moriarty was out there, he started to think what usually made his mind move but then he heard John's voice as he spoke to the bartender. He sounded relaxed so he obviously took care of his morning problem. There was no hint of discomfort so he obviously didn't remember his last night's dreams or notice Sherlock's out-of-character- conduct.

That meant that they could continue as usual.

John ordered breakfast but he failed to order coffee. Inefficient as he was, he'll probably notice that in the middle of breakfast and then growl dissatisfied. Then he'll either get up to get coffee or withstand the lack of it.

Sherlock went to the bartender and ordered two coffee's

"Without sugar," he said for John's coffee.

Sherlock took their coffee and went out to sit beside John on the bench and John just continued to talk business not even noticing coffee on the table before him. He was like that if things were to his liking he would barely notice them.

John commented on how the pub owners couldn't make themselves to kill the dog.

"I see," Sherlock said absentmindedly.

"No, you don't," John corrected him, as usual, he didn't let him get away with anything.

"No, I don't," he focused on John's sentence. "Sentiment?" he tried.

"Sentiment," John approved and Sherlock sat down feeling things were back to normal.

Then John started to think about the lab and how exactly he was drugged. Sherlock tried to distract him with the usual stuff like food.

"Was it ketchup," Sherlock knew it was ketchup but John didn't fold.

"You were convinced it was in the sugar," he said piecing it together.

"We better get going," Sherlock tried to distract him with the urgency of their departure but John persisted as usual when he would understand something.

"It was you," he said realizing what happened. "You locked me into that bloody lab."

"I was scared to death," John shouted angrily and Sherlock shushed him feeling uncomfortable.

He started to explain himself to paddle over John's anger, he didn't need another fight. They were too explosive lately anyway.

"I needed to try it on an average one," Sherlock said describing John's mind.

John paused looking straight forward deciding how loud he should yell.

"You know what I mean," Sherlock said not sure how to rephrase that to sound acceptable.

Instead of yelling, John decided to insist on the fact that Sherlock was wrong.

"A bit," Sherlock admitted uncomfortably. "It won't happen again," he said about the experiment, he knew that he will be wrong again, he would have to be stupid to think that it is possible to never be wrong.

John accepted Sherlock's defeat as an apology and kept eating. Sherlock looked at the pub owner and thought about sentiment. A man who is sentimental enough about a dog to feed him refused to kill him and rather release him in the woods rather than caging him will stay on the lookout for the dog if he thinks that he's still alive.

Sherlock got up and went to tell him the news of the dog's departure. Notifications of death were the part of the job, the one that brought people grief but also allowed them to move on and possibly find another dog.

Sherlock never had another dog after Redbeard. Sometimes he wondered why but not much because as soon as he did the sorrow felt like water that is rising and he can't breathe.

He shook those thoughts away sitting back on the bench waiting for John. He observed Henry's therapist as she smiled at him through the window. She waved at him as they know each other. He frowned trying to decipher her behaviour but then there was John at the door with their bags signalling to him.

Without hesitation, Sherlock got up and was ready to go back to his battles where his mind works constantly not letting him the moment of peace.

Now off to the space between episodes.